美国国家公共电台 NPR--How to handle your quarterlife crisis with grace

How to handle your quarterlife crisis with grace

Transcript¹

NPR's Life Kit² has tips for people in their 20s and 30 struggling to navigate³ the challenges of "quarterlife".

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

There's a common misconception about youth that when you're in your 20s or even your 30s, you're carefree and adventurous⁴, not yet anchored down by the limitations and responsibilities of middle age. But a lot of people in this age group feel unfulfilled and lost. Marielle Segarra of NPR's Life Kit has some tips for how to balance freedom and adventure with stability.

MARIELLE SEGARRA, BYLINE⁵: Often in this period called quarterlife, people feel unsettled, stuck at a job they hate or in a city that doesn't feel like it fits.

SATYA DOYLE BYOCK: You feel like, wait - this is what I've been working towards? This is what all of childhood seeks to achieve is this?

SEGARRA: Satya Doyle Byock is a psychotherapist in Portland, Ore. And she wrote a book called "Quarterlife: The Search For Self In Early Adulthood⁶." She says one of the biggest challenges for quarterlifers is a tug⁷ of war between meaning and stability. Meaning, she says, is a feeling of openness, freedom and adventure, whereas stability is safety and groundedness.

DOYLE BYLOCK: A person might both want to feel like they're fancy free and alone and living the single life and also long to be married with children. And it's so confusing to feel these truly opposing desires showing up inside of us.

SEGARRA: There are illustrations in the book that get at this. Meaning is fire, which on its own can rage uncontrollably. And stability is the fireplace, which you don't want to have sitting empty.

DOYLE BYLOCK: We need both. We need a sense of containment⁸ for that fire and warmth and bounty⁹ in our lives.

SEGARRA: In the book, Doyle Byock lays out a few ways that we can find a path forward in quarterlife and bring these opposing sides of ourselves together. The first is separation. It's about understanding the forces that have shaped you and launching out on your own.

DOYLE BYLOCK: The sort of invisible hooks of childhood, of our parents, of a church we may have grown up in or a certain culture we were raised in. Those hooks linger, and they can linger for decades and decades if we don't really attend to them.

SEGARRA: Sometimes separation is literal. You move out of your parents' house or break up with a partner. But even if not, it's about creating a separate existence outside of these relationships. Then there's listening. That's about trusting ourselves, paying attention to what our bodies feel, to the dreams we have at night and following those little breadcrumbs of joy.

DOYLE BYLOCK: That food that we love, that music that we adore - really trying to allow each person to attend to those nuances and to start learning about themselves again in a way that's quite contrary to most social messages, which suggests it's narcissistic¹⁰ or overly self-involved.

SEGARRA: Another concept in the book is building, creating the life that we want. For people who are hyperfocused on stability, there might be some demolition¹¹ that happens first. Maybe that means taking a sabbatical from work or switching to a different kind of job that doesn't suck the life out of you. Meanwhile, the people who lean towards meaning and adventure might need structure and routine. You want to be a writer? Start writing every day. That's building.

DOYLE BYLOCK: So building one's life often requires discipline and effort that manifests in the external world what it is we might be feeling or kind of invisibly experiencing in the internal world.

SEGARRA: Ultimately, Doyle Byock says the goal is to bring the meaning and stability sides of ourselves together. And maybe that's some of the joy of getting older.

For NPR News, I'm Marielle Segarra.

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 kit   

n.用具包，成套工具；随身携带物

参考例句：

• The kit consisted of about twenty cosmetic items.整套工具包括大约20种化妆用品。
• The captain wants to inspect your kit.船长想检查你的行装。

3 navigate   

v.航行，飞行；导航，领航

参考例句：

• He was the first man to navigate the Atlantic by air.他是第一个飞越大西洋的人。
• Such boats can navigate on the Nile.这种船可以在尼罗河上航行。

4 adventurous   

adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的　

参考例句：

• I was filled with envy at their adventurous lifestyle.我很羨慕他们敢于冒险的生活方式。
• He was predestined to lead an adventurous life.他注定要过冒险的生活。

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 adulthood   

n.成年，成人期

参考例句：

• Some infantile actions survive into adulthood.某些婴儿期的行为一直保持到成年期。
• Few people nowadays are able to maintain friendships into adulthood.如今很少有人能将友谊维持到成年。

7 tug   

v.用力拖(或拉)；苦干；n.拖；苦干；拖船

参考例句：

• We need to tug the car round to the front.我们需要把那辆车拉到前面。
• The tug is towing three barges.那只拖船正拖着三只驳船。

8 containment   

n.阻止，遏制；容量

参考例句：

• Your list might include such things as cost containment,quality,or customer satisfaction.你的清单上应列有诸如成本控制、产品质量、客户满意程度等内容。
• Insularity and self-containment,it is argued,go hand in hand.他们争论说，心胸狭窄和自我封闭是并存的。

9 bounty   

n.慷慨的赠予物，奖金；慷慨，大方；施与

参考例句：

• He is famous for his bounty to the poor.他因对穷人慷慨相助而出名。
• We received a bounty from the government.我们收到政府给予的一笔补助金。

10 narcissistic   

adj.自我陶醉的，自恋的，自我崇拜的

参考例句：

• In the modern vocabulary, it was narcissistic. 用时髦话说，这是一种自我陶醉狂。 来自辞典例句
• This is our Nielaoshi, a dwarf has also grown narcissistic teachers. 这就是我们的倪老师，一个长得又矮又自恋的老师。 来自互联网

11 demolition   

n.破坏,毁坏,毁坏之遗迹

参考例句：

• The church has been threatened with demolition for years. 这座教堂多年来一直面临拆毀的威胁。
• The project required the total demolition of the old bridge. 该项目要求将老桥完全拆毁。